Libraries, libraries everywhere…and not a book to read

Click the link: Libraries, libraries everywhere, and not a book to read?

ACW blog - September 7th 2024

Library: from Latin librarium – a bookcase, chest for books

Local libraries were places where even the squeak of a shoe on the shiny floor was frowned upon and silence was fiercely enforced by stern ladies with oversized glasses and penetrating stares.

Nevertheless, I spent a fair bit of time in my local library (Whitstable, Kent) during school years rooting around various sections: science, maths, the paranormal, science fiction, and history all come to mind.

It was at University, though, that I successfully distracted myself from my Chemistry degree with fiction - others might have done so with copious amounts of alcohol and other synthetic means – but my forays into Mordor, East of Eden, the Russian Gulag, or Corfu with the Durrels, seemed to be just as intoxicating.

Michael Rosen, former Children’s Laureate, has been voicing his ‘horror’ at the latest round of library closures: ‘

Every time I hear of a library being closed I find it…horrifying… a decimation of our cultural entitlement…many children come from families where they either don’t think to buy books or can’t afford to buy books… we’re taking away free books. At the very moment we’re saying we want everybody to read – so it seems both absurd and horrifying.’

Two stats have made me think:

• 7% children aged 8-18 do not have a book at home. Of those receiving Free School Meals this

increases to 12% and 19% of children aged 5-8 have no book at home

• 97% of children in England have Internet access at home

Is there a case, therefore, for reducing the number of computers in public libraries and returning them to the book and reading sanctuaries of yesteryear?

Libraries have become internet portals and welcoming warm places; more community hubs than reading centres.

But I wonder if there might be a causal link between the declining numbers of library users and this dilution of their primary focus, rather than reduced funding? And as writers shouldn't we be at the sharp end of championing a library-revival?

You may be right in thinking I’ve been captured by some dinosaurian tractor-beam…but I’m searching for solid ground and asking for your thoughts!

In writing this short post, I have hit Google several times. We all use word processors and carry out vast amounts of research online, so I’m not knocking the rise of the Internet, but surely, as writers, we know in our bones, that we have a vital role to play with all present and future readers, stimulating their thirst for imaginative story-telling, and firing their love of literature

Libraries as repositories of cultural treasure?

Michael Rosen has a point.

Book Review: Phoebe – A Story, Paula Gooder, Hodder & Stoughton

‘One day, Quintus, a cousin of Titus arrived at the house…Titus was attractive in a kind, homely way…Quintus was devastatingly handsome…’

In Paula’s fictional account of life in the church in Rome during the New Testament era, we are introduced to well-known characters from the pages of Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s letters such as Priscilla (shortened to Prisca) and Aquila, Junia and Andronicus, Titus, Phobe herself, and Peter. And others.

Phoebe – A Story is based on three speculative interpretations from Paul’s letter to Romans:

• Paul had commissioned Phoebe (Rom 16v1) to carry his letter to Rome, explain its meaning to the believers there, and prepare for Paul’s hoped-for mission to Spain.

• Junia (female) and Andronicus (male) were apostles

• The evident tension between Jewish believers and their Gentile brothers and sisters in Rome had more to do with Jewish covenantal status than the Law – a nod to New Perspective theology

Whilst the heart of Phoebe is, as its sub-title, A Story, suggests, a story and reads as an engaging imaginative description of life in Rome and is very ably enhanced by the historical research of first-century Roman society, the above three assumptions form the guiding principles that govern the arc of the story.

It is, therefore, a feminist historical fiction, not only weaving a story around hermeneutical interpretations of New Testament literature but also promoting well-argued feminist contentions that all offices and ministries in the church should be occupied equally by men and women.

Phoebe herself turns out to be a far more complex character – with slavery, a dangerous romance, and tragedy all thrown in

Leaving issues of biblical interpretation on one side, the personalities of the principal characters are well-described and engaging. Phoebe herself turns out to be a far more complex character – with slavery, a dangerous romance, and tragedy all thrown in - than the one verse in Paul’s letter has the scope to describe. Paula does this very well and the various tensions that ensue give the book its very readable momentum.

So…if you want to let yourself be absorbed in the simplicity of life in first-century Rome just before Nero’s reign, this is an excellent starting point.

And, if you’re after a book to fire your imagination, dulled after years of over-familiarity with the New Testament, Paula Gooder’s Phoebe will do just that.

Did Paul arrive in Rome? What happened to the trip to Spain? You may find the answers lying within Phoebe – A Story.

PS

Part 2 of the book contains 80 pages of helpful notes on each chapter giving more historical and biblical background

A Tale of Two Pubs

These two pubs, unpaired
Not by compass and meridians
But by a subterranean,
Inexpressible knowing,
Where words are crude
Instruments failing to
Distinguish differing
Smiles of satisfaction

On a Saturday, for lunch,
Lynch and I and others
Traipse through slate-grey
Winter wind and drizzle
Like intent pilgrims
Discomforts disdained
To the Ruby Lounge
A meeting place for toothless old men

The real Ruby Lounge was far rougher and more dilapidated

And us, barely shaving
But young and old shuffle their way
Across the sawdust-strewn floor
To an altar rail, for communion
The priest, taking our offerings
Clasped with tattooed hands the tap
And poured forth the weekly libation
A pint of Youngs

Eyes meet, publican priest
With his latest converts,
Silenced initiates,
Their inexperienced hands
Still tracing the bevels
Of their fathers’ jugs
Embarrassed to show
Too much satisfaction

Smiles concealed,
We return,
Across the sawdust
To the wobbly table
Sticky with yesterday’s beer
And spoil the moment with
Mundane talk of Monty Python
And Parmesan cheese on toast

Maybe a bath and some spray later
And a trench coat if cold and dark
A collection of poorly paid pilgrims
Stomping their feet against the cold
Nudge away from minor village roads
To find the path across fields
Illuminated by a watching moon
Towards the waiting lights

Sadly, the Share & Coulter in no more…this pub has a similar feel if a bit busier

The Share and Coulter
There, eight animated souls,
Bums on wooden seats
With tied-on cushions,
A polished table and dry beer mats,
And a roaring fire just beyond…
Clueless to how daringly close
To heaven they’ve come, huddle

Pictures of long-dead Shires
And their barrelled drays
Looking on from the walls
Witness my blaspheming
And Christ’s secret agent asking
‘Why did you say that?’
Unseen angels lean in
Licking their lips

The Moon is Watching

This last week
The Moon has perched herself
Above the fir tree opposite
Tapping me on the shoulder
Each morning
So I don’t forget
To say Good Morning

The moon perched above the fir tree opposite

Normally the Moon stays hidden
And like some nocturnal beast
Shyly puts on her cloak
Of misty white light
Before perching -
Up there

But this Moon
Maybe a different one
Is a breakfast feast
A pre-running sight
Been waiting
With some impatience
For someone to see her
Importance, significance

Like the Christmas story
But unlike the Magi
With their Eastern wisdom
My mind is blank…
If there is a baby in the fir tree
It would seem untimely
Unlikely…

As if she hears my absence
She turns, flees, and fades
But has one last trick
As she sinks and sinks
What was a bright sixpence in the sky
Is now a translucent sovereign
Her reign extending ever larger
Just beyond the horizon

Objection 3: Hypocrisy, irrelevance, immorality within the church Objection 4: Impossible to be good enough

Objection 3: Hypocrisy

When I began to read the bible, I was astonished to find that virtually all its heroes were visibly flawed.

The willingness of the authors of holy writ to report the truth, warts and all, gave me, as an agnostic, greater confidence and a new respect for the bible: Abraham pretended his wife was his sister, Moses committed murder, David – adultery and murder, Peter denied Christ, and Judas betrayed him.

And in the church era, following the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, the letters of Paul, Peter, and John all tackle issues of ‘sin’ within the church, for example, sexual immorality in the church at Corinth, antisemitism in Rome, or pride, as John confronts Diotrephes: ‘Diotrephes who loves the pre-eminence’. Peter wrote

‘Laying aside all malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and evil speaking…’

For Peter to need to write this, these faults must have been evident in the church. It was real life. Peter was far from immune from the charge of hypocrisy; it needed Paul to call him back from differentiating too strongly between Jewish and gentile believers that he only ate with his fellow Jewish brethren.

In the past few years, news of sexual immorality amongst Christian leaders entrusted with the welfare of their congregations and followers, has surfaced once again causing hurt and sadness amongst the faithful – and further evidence for objecting to Christianity for those looking for reasons to dismiss the claims of Jesus.

But the more I investigated Christianity, the more I saw that, while coming to Christ does not make anyone instantly perfect, the overwhelming evidence from the vast majority of Christians is that conversion to Christ had been the start of a process, or discipleship, in which - despite serious setbacks at times – keeps changing the person, for the better.

The leader of the Mau Mau gang in New York, Israel Narvaez, was converted to Christ along with Nicky Cruz. Sadly, through a broken promise, Israel became disillusioned, returned to lead the Mau Mau’s, and was found guilty of committing murder. Several years later, however, he returned to follow Christ and wrote his account in Second Chance, finally leaving behind his violent lifestyle.

Jesus led a faultless life…that is why we are drawn to Him

The extraordinary eyewitness claim of the New Testament is that Jesus led a faultless life. In part, that is why we are drawn to Him. He is the light in a dark place and embodies the ideal – he really did practice what he preached. Whenever someone comes to Christ, they are very aware of their imperfections: fears, jealousies, dishonesty, misplaced anger, pride, and their need for forgiveness so that any barrier between them and Christ is dealt with.

Christ’s death on the cross was substitutionary, He died for us, in our place, taking the punishment we deserved in Himself to bring about our forgiveness so that we could be brought back into relationship with God. His final prayer on the cross was ‘Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing’.

That’s the start. Paul wrote:

‘He who began a good work in you will bring it to maturity’

At times God will reveal to us if we have strayed onto the wrong path and we need to take Peter’s instruction to ‘lay aside’ whatever it is that is wrong, however trivial or serious.

The way in which Jesus dealt with Peter’s denial of him is a masterpiece of grace, mercy, forgiveness, and kindness. Mark’s gospel records Peter’s denial:

‘…he began to curse and swear “I don’t know this man!”’

The rough fisherman, not the disciple of Christ was there for everyone to see, including Christ.

‘And the Lord turned and looked at Peter…Peter went out and wept bitterly’.

Jesus did not even mention this just after the resurrection, nor for many days after that, until, back in Galilee, Jesus appeared on the beach. Peter and some of the disciples were returning after another night’s fruitless fishing. As before there was a miraculous catch of fish. After breakfast on the beach, Jesus takes Peter to one side:

‘Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these?’

Peter replies ‘Yes, you know I do’. But Jesus repeats this question three times, the same number of times that Peter denied Christ just weeks before. Peter replies ‘Lord, you know all things…’ and Jesus responds: ‘Feed my sheep’.

It is always like this. Jesus picks his moment. He confronts us, our conscience is troubled, we are convicted of what is wrong, and we experience Christ’s forgiveness and mercy. We find ourselves restored first to Christ and then to our calling, released once again to do whatever we are here to do.

My conclusion: I did not become a Christian by looking at the faults of believers or the church, but because I dared to look at Christ. In the end, everything is focussed on Christ and you. What will you do? Follow or turn away?

The final Objection to Christianity is linked to the issue of hypocrisy. It’s the fear ‘I won’t be able to live like Jesus, I will try but, I’m sure, won’t be able to keep it up. There’s no point. I’m sure Jesus was a great man, but it’s too much. It’s impossible to live the Christian life!’

Objection 4: Impossible to be good enough

I found out some bad news, which, paradoxically, turns out to be the best news we can ever hear.

It is true. It is impossible to be good enough or to live a Christian life, the paradox being that this is a vital clue.

Non-swimmers make a great deal of effort, arms and legs thrashing, to try and stay above the water. Those who can swim, however, seem to float effortlessly and move around at will. The truth is that the non-swimmer can swim but hasn’t learnt to trust that it is the water, not their efforts, that holds them up and gives them the buoyancy they need.

It is the same with the Christian life. If we’ve become a Christian we have to learn that it is Christ, not our efforts, who who enables his life to be reproduced in us and through us.

The great surprise to me as an enquiring agnostic was to find that Christianity does not require us to try and be like Christ but that Christ comes to live in us. God is not far away in heaven but comes to live in us.

Just prior to his arrest and crucifixion, Jesus taught his disciples: ‘…the Spirit who dwells with you will be in you…then you will know me and the Father…and we will come and make our home with you’.

After Paul’s dramatic road to Damascus conversion he wrote: ‘When it pleased God…he revealed His Son in me…’ after which he often referred to believers as being ‘in Christ’ or of ‘Christ in you’.

God is not far away in heaven but comes to live in us

We learn to trust in Him rather than relying on own abilities of rational thinking, emotional intuition, or desires, or our determination to complete whatever we are doing, our will. The Bible calls this type of living, ‘living in the flesh’ rather than being ‘led by the Spirit’. The power to live a transformed life comes from Christ Himself, not our grit and determination to put His teaching e.g. the Sermon on the Mount, into practice.

Our relationship with God is not a meritocracy where we receive blessings from God because we deserve it having worked hard, Jesus said: ‘Freely you have received, freely give’

My conclusion: learning to float and swim with less effort is a good analogy for how to live the Christian life, in fact, life itself! Paul, who previously was a law-abiding Pharisee, wrote:

‘We rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh – though I might have had. No, whatever were my advantages, I counted them as rubbish so that I might gain Christ and be found in him…’

To close, the following video covers some of the points raised in these Objections to Christianity articles

Who would base their lives on a brutal, contradictory book of fairy stories? - YouTube

Objection 2: No miracles: Science has disproved the supernatural

If this was a rally or a protest march against the claims of Christianity, each of these four Objections would be carried by vociferous protestors as banners or placards

For some, the most important doubt over Christianity might be the reliability of the source material, the New Testament. For others it might be miracles, and for others the hypocrisy of ‘the church’, or a sense of their own inability to live ‘the Christian life’.

 As an agnostic, all four played a part in constructing my objections to Christianity, however, once I had accepted the New Testament’s historicity and the New Testament writings as a genuine attempt to record what was seen and heard by eye-witnesses, I was confronted with the problem of miracles. I hadn’t witnessed a miraculous healing, nor had I heard of anyone who had. England seemed to be bereft of miracles. I had attended church through childhood and prayers were politely made for the sick of the parish but there was no expectation of miraculous intervention.

England seemed to be bereft of miracles

 The New Testament gospels, Acts, and letters to churches present a very different sense of what is ‘normal’. Angels announce Jesus’ birth and appear in a jailbreak, and at the resurrection. Miraculous healings and deliverance of evil spirits are part and parcel of Jesus’ ministry, and this power is passed on to his disciples. Normality, as far as the New Testament is concerned matches the Lord’s Prayer: ‘May Your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven’. By heaven we might think more in terms of a ‘spiritual realm’. Heaven and Earth, as far as Jesus was concerned were not as disconnected as we, especially in the West since the Enlightenment, have come to believe.

 My quest to get to the truth of the matter started in an unusual setting – I was 16 and had just bought a pint in a local pub and as I walked back to where my friends were sitting (yes, we were underage), I bumped into a chair leg and spilt my dink and swore, ‘Christ!’  Once I sat down with what was left of my beer, the friend next to me said ‘Why did you say that?’

 I had run into the first of many true Christian believers that I would meet. This small incident kick-started my search for the truth, and led on to a series of further conversations, reading various books, listening to sermons at the church she attended and so on.

 I had two fundamental questions. Can we trust the New Testament as a genuine record of events? And what about miracles?

 One of the first books I read was called Run Baby Run written by Nicky Cruz. Nicky Cruz had been a gang leader in 1950s New York who, after meeting David Wilkerson, a Pentecostal preacher, eventually walked away from the gang and placed his faith in Christ. David Wilkerson recorded his version of events in The Cross and the Switchblade. In both accounts there were examples of the miraculous, drug habits broken, healing miracles, and so on – it was as if the pages of the New Testament had come alive in New York.

everything can be explained ‘naturally’ through the random movements of atoms and molecules and the unpredictable distribution of energy i.e. no need, for the supernatural or the miraculous.

 At 16 I was fascinated by Chemistry and Science in general. I was to go on to study Chemistry at University and have a career as a Chemistry teacher. I knew my way around Scientific theories and how the rise of Science from the 17th Century had convinced many that everything can be explained ‘naturally’ through the random movements of atoms and molecules and the unpredictable distribution of energy i.e. there was no room, no need, for the supernatural or the miraculous. Atheistic chemical determinism was twinned with philosophical movements such as the Marxism and existentialism championed by Jean-Paul Satre. The gulf between Satre and biblical prophets and teachers, and Jesus himself, is evident from a quote of Satre: ‘Life has no meaning, the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal’.

 But the Scientific method is predicated upon accurate observations and measurement – verified eye-witness material.

 It was the miraculous healing of David Wilkerson’s father that challenged me to reconsider.

 ‘During all my childhood my father had been a very sick man…one day I heard an ambulance tear past…I could hear my father’s screams (from the house)…’The doctor says he will live two more hours’…I ran down to the basement…and there I prayed…my voice carried up the heating pipes…my father heard me…’Strength is flowing into me’. I had witnessed a miracle.’

 The miracles that David Wilkerson witnessed throughout his ministry all stemmed from this experience.

 Since abandoning my agnosticism I have witnessed several healing miracles.

 Whilst working at Pfizers Ltd. as a lab technician, my colleague, Alan’s (not his real name) fiancée became dangerously ill with anorexia nervosa. The doctors could find no solution and the lab leader permitted Alan to use as much time as he wanted to skip his work and spend time in Pfizer’s extensive pharmaceutical library to find any alternative source of healing. During one of our regular Friday lunches as a lab group, I felt an urge to offer to pray for my Alan’s fiancée, but I was too nervous to mention it in front of the others, so I prayed and asked for a sign. Firstly, from that point on during lunch, that no one would speak to me, and, secondly, when we got returned to the lab, my colleague and I would be alone in the lab. Both of these were extremely unlikely but they happened. Nervously, heart pounding, I said to Alan ‘I believe God loves your fiancée and wants to heal her. Would you give me your permission to pray for her?’ He said yes and we got on with our work, eventually leaving for the weekend. On the Saturday morning, I was with a group of Christians, and we prayed for Alan’s fiancée. At work on Monday, Alan arrived full of the news that his fiancée had got out of bed and had started eating. I asked him what time this had occurred. It was the same time that we had prayed on the Saturday morning.

Nervously, heart pounding, I said to Alan ‘I believe God loves your fiancée and wants to heal her. Would you give me your permission to pray for her?’

 Coincidence?

 If I was to apply my scientific analysis to similar occurrences I would be forced to say that these coincidences seem to match the times when prayer was offered.

 This leaves us with two, at least two, questions:

1.        Is a philosophical reorientation required to incorporate ‘miracles’ into what we call ‘knowledge’

2.        Miracles may happen but why doesn’t a loving God always miraculously heal the sick?

To answer question 1. requires minds like mine, so focussed on the material world of atoms and energy, to be prised open, open at leat tooth possible existence of a spiritual, or supernatural, realm. As an interim step, we can recognise that ‘knowledge’ is greater in its scope than the scientific method, which regularly establishes truth through observation and repeated measurements. For example – the statement ‘I love you’ or ‘I love a beautiful sunset’ is as factual as e=mc2 , it is simply another form of knowledge no less valid than the results of a scientific experiment, yet invisible and impossible to verify through experiment. Our ability to reason is not our sole attribute, nor is it our highest faculty. The contention of Scripture is that believers in Christ are ‘led by the Spirit’ and that our spirit ‘witnesses’ with the Holy Spirit. This is another way of saying that through faith in Christ, we are brought into a real relationship with God, not ‘religion’ in its usually perceived form of moral codes, rules, and commandments. The urgent prayers of the young David Wilkerson did not find their origin in his rational mind but in faith in God.

 The questions about suffering are complex. If miracles demonstrate the love and power of almighty God, why are some prayers unanswered? Even if I had more pages, I know I would not be able to offer a neat and tidy answer. I do feel I can make an observation from experience. There have been times, like my Pfizers experience, when I have felt the presence of God before attempting to pray for someone who is sick or for some other form of divine intervention, as if the faith that is required is given first like a precious gift.

 I have included here an article about miraculous healings that were verified by a PhD student in Wales https://www.premierchristianity.com/opinion/god-is-working-miracles-and-healing-people-in-wales-and-ive-got-the-phd-research-to-prove-it/5591.article

 The New Testament refers to miracles as signs and wonders. A sign advertises something else, or points the way to it and a wonder is something that make us stop in our tracks however distracted we are by life. Miracles are said to be a sign that ‘the kingdom of God’ is nearer than we might think, and wonders force us to consider the possibility of a spiritual realm or heaven. It is as if God is saying ‘I am here’.

 The miracles that Jesus performed did not guarantee that those who were present became radical disciples, in fact, they stirred up as much opposition as devotion. For example, when Jesus raised Lazarus, opinion was split:

 Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.  But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.

My conclusion

 As an agnostic, I had to concede that miracles do occur today – and to my surprise - in England. Two of my principle objections to Christianity – the historical reliability of the New Testament and that science had disproved miracles – had been dealt with severe blows.

 The healing incident at Pfizers occurred in the first year after I had become a raw recruit of Christ just prior to/my eighteenth birthday. I think this is important to mention, miracles are not reserved for super-saints or seasoned church ministers of Christianity. They do not occur through faith in oneself but faith in God and at His command.

 Ten years after my conversion to Christ, I injured my left knee severely whilst training for the Mountain Leaders Certificate in Snowdonia, Wales. That put paid to/my dream of leading groups in the hills. I could only run for about 200m before pulling up in pain. The condition lasted for ten years. I had asked for prayer a few times but there was no miracle. I had various physiotherapy exercises and straps but nothing worked. One morning, during my normal breakfast routine of juggling tea and toast with reading a passage from the bible and praying, my prayers were interrupted. All I can say is that I heard a voice say ‘Run!’ It was like a command; it had authority, but wasn’t aggressive. It wasn’t unpleasant but neither was it rhetorical. It wasn’t an audible voice, but the ‘still small voice’ that scripture mentions. Jesus also taught that ‘My sheep know my voice’. It felt like that. I had to go to work but at the next available opportunity, I attempted to run for about half a mile. To my astonishment, there was no pain. Within a year I trained for a half-marathon and ran ten consecutive Bristol Half-Marathons from 1999 to 2009 and have continued to run since. That was a miraculous healing at God’s command, it reminded me of the incident when Jesus told the paralytic to pick up his mat and walk.

I heard a voice say ‘Run!’ It was like a command

 As Head of Science at a local comprehensive school, I was often invited to talk to RE classes as an ‘exhibit’ - a scientist who believed in God. Inevitably I had to field questions about evolution, the Crusades, contradictions in the Bible and so on – all very valid intellectual questions – but it was stories of miracles that often changed the atmosphere in the room from one of dismissive scepticism to curiosity.  

 Next?

 But what about hypocrisy within the church? Walking the walk not talking the talk? What about the reprehensible involvement of the church in the slave trade, or racism such as Apartheid? And the moral failure of Christian leaders, priests, and ministers?

Objection 1: Unreliable source material, the New Testament

One of my chief objections to Christianity was that its claims stem from the pages of the New Testament, and I had reached the conclusion that if the source material was unreliable then believing in Christ was no more than wishful thinking, on a par with believing that the Moon is made of cheese.

Reliability of Source Material – the New Testament

• Written a long time after the events, not by eye-witnesses, therefore unreliable

• Written by Jesus’s followers therefore biased and exaggerated

• Deliberate fiction – the authors invented the imaginary perfect figure of Jesus

When challenged to investigate the evidence for Christianity, however, I was surprised to find significant evidence for the historicity and reliability of the New Testament.

Evidence for the resurrection?

Charge 1: Written a long time after the events, not eye-witness accounts, unreliable

4th Century AD

Earliest complete copy of all the books of the New Testament (Codex Sinaiticus) AD 325 or shortly afterwards

2nd/3rd Centuries - summary

Papyrus P32 Titus Greek 2nd-3rd Century

Papyrus P46 Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, Hebrews Greek 2nd-early 3rd Century

Papyrus P66 Gospel of John Greek 2nd-3rd Century

Papyrus P77 Gospel of Matthew Greek 2nd-3rd Century

Papyrus P103 Gospel of Matthew Greek 2nd-3rd Century

Majuscule GA0189 Acts of the Apostles Greek 2nd-3rd Century

Earliest Fragments – 2nd Century

Matthew’s gospel (P90) and John’s gospel (P104)

Revelation (P98)

John’s gospel (P52) probably ~ AD 135

Conclusion from the New Testament copies

The above fragments or complete books have, of course, been copied from earlier versions. The level of accuracy and agreement between manuscript copies in the Koine Greek commonly used at the time is remarkable and the discrepancies when they occur are minor copying or dictation errors.

I came to the conclusion that the gospels were reliable eyewitness accounts

My conclusion as an agnostic was to acknowledge the historicity and reliability of the documents. That did not mean that I agreed with what was written, but that the various gospels and letters were not only authored by eye-witnesses or those who knew the eye-witnesses, they were alarmingly consistent with each other.

Warner Wallace, a former atheist and cold-case homicide detective, wrote: ‘In the end, I came to the conclusion that the gospels were reliable eyewitness accounts that delivered accurate information about Jesus, including His crucifixion and Resurrection’ Jesus Is Evidence That God Exists | Cold Case Christianity

Charge 2: The New Testament is written by Jesus’s followers therefore biased and exaggerated

Essentially this charge is one of dishonesty and outright hypocrisy as its authors – and Jesus himself – consistently argue that truth is to believed and spoken. If hypocrisy and dishonesty seem to be unnecessarily strong charges, then ‘hyped’ or ‘sexed up’ may be less strident? In other words, deliberately exaggerated maybe, still conveying the ‘truth’, but with some poetic license: Jesus didn’t walk on the water, he knew where a sandbar was and walked on that. It only appeared that he walked on water.

Aware of this easy criticism, the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth anchoring all his claims in unavoidable history. The New Testament is not an attempt to invent a spiritual belief detached from real events. Faith is based on history not myth.

‘Christ died…and…was buried and rose again the third day…and was seen by Peter…then by the twelve. After that he was seen by over 500 at once of whom the majority are still alive…and after that, by me’ 1 Cor 15v3-8

On the third day, according to the scriptures...

Serious historians are not as prone to dismissing the New Testament’s historicity as we might think judging from how Christianity is portrayed in many tv documentaries or in popular literature. Comparison of the literary record with other well-known figures from ancient history, is – was to me – very surprising.

Homer – The Iliad – written 900BC – earliest copy 400BC - time delay 500years

Julius Caesar - 100-44 BC – earliest copy 900 - time delay 1000 years

New Testament – AD50 - AD100 – earliest copy AD 135 - time delay less than 100 years

The number of ancient copies of the New Testament still in existence is 5800 Greek, 10,000 Latin, and 9,300 in other languages. This is considerably more than for any other ancient document:

Homer Iliad – 643

Julius Caesar - 10 copies

My conclusion: having read the New Testament I was not only surprised by the level of internal agreement between its various authors concerning historical events and doctrinal beliefs, I was genuinely surprised to find that all of is heroes (except Jesus) were deeply flawed and permitted the authors to expose their imperfections, fears, lack of faith, unloving attitudes, and cowardice to public view in the writings in the gospels and elsewhere.

I could still maintain my agnosticism. I could accept that the contents of the New Testament were genuine and accurately copied from the originals and that they represented the point of view of the various authors whether eye-witnesses or based on eye-witness reports. Accepting that the New Testament is genuine does not mean that, had you been a eye-witness to the events and teaching of Jesus that you would have been convinced by His claims.

Agnostic, I remained, if somewhat surprised by the strength of evidence for the historicity of the New Testament.

Charge 3: Deliberate fake?

J.B. Philips, a bible translator, and author of The Ring of Truth, began translating the New Testament with a fairly jaundiced point of view:

‘I confess…I had viewed the Greek of the New Testament with a rather snobbish disdain’

As he read and translated the Koine Greek – everyday rather than classical ‘posh’ Greek with which he was more accustomed, he reported:

‘As I pressed on with the task of translation I became convinced of the truth of the resurrection…I was reading the actual words of people who had seen Christ after his resurrection an had seen men an women changed by his living power’

‘There is no hysteria, no careful working for effect and no attempt at collusion. These are not embroidered tales: the material is cut to the bone…no man could have invented a character as Jesus’

The greatest problem with the suspicion and assertion that Jesus did not exist and that the New Testament is a fiction, is that, rather than being dismissed at the time as demonstrably false, the message – principally of the resurrection - took hold. Within a few decades of the events witnessed by the apostles and other early followers of Christ, the testimony of eye-witnesses was believed from Jerusalem to Rome and was on the way to Spain. Having crossed the Jewish-Gentile barrier there was no stopping of he growth and spread of Christianity or ‘The Way’ as it was nicknamed early on.

Apart from statistical evidence of the rapid growth of the faith that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ, it is the character of the apostles and other eye-witnesses, all of whose lived lives of impeccable honesty with an emphasis on truth and love that cannot be dismissed. Had they been proven charlatans, unreliable characters, using their fantastical claims in order to extort the faithful, then the case against the New Testament would have been strengthened.

‘As I pressed on with the task of translation I became convinced of the truth of the resurrection…I was reading the actual words of people who had seen Christ after his resurrection an had seen men an women changed by his living power’

Further to this is the record of the sufferings of Jesus and his followers all of whom could have avoided their sufferings had they abandoned their false claims about the resurrection and the miracles. John the Baptist was beheaded, Jesus was crucified, Stephen was stoned to death, James killed, and Paul was arrested and imprisoned, whipped, suffered shipwreck.

My conclusion: the New Testament is not a fake; it is a genuine attempt of the writers to record the actual events and words of Jesus and his followers before and after the resurrection. Whilst I accepted all of this, my agnosticism remained intact. Had I been there, I may not have been as convinced as the eyewitnesses who then passed on material to be enshrined in the pages of the New Testament.

But, like JB Philips, not in translation but in reading the source material, the New Testament, I had to abandon my own ‘snobbish disdain’. I could, no longer maintain any sense of chronological snobbery. Either the claims of Jesus in the gospels and the apostles that followed the resurrection are true or not true. That is the issue, not whether the New Testament is historically reliable, or reporting genuine eye-witness accounts.

This agnostic has been made to think.

Dirt under our fingernails

This is why I believe in Jesus
Not because of carefully constructed choirs
Or the booming bass of a Pentecostal party
Or priests pressing you for pounds and pence
Or the frocks, the bishop’s staff
The dog-collars demarcating You from Me

                                                                                                               With Lazarus

No, I believe in Jesus because
He who believed in me believes in you
He who kicked a can down the road
With Lazarus, his mate, the one who died temporarily
I believe in Jesus because he wept
At the tomb - it was not all miracles – and
Over Jerusalem like our mothers’ weep over us

And because he loved Mary
Magdalene
A woman so pained,
So disfigured by her demons
In so much…poo
Then he came and wiped it away…the poo
Her sufferings, her tears
And made her love life and love again
And to linger in the garden
When Jesus outdid Lazarus

And, posing as a gardener
Gave us all
All of us with dirt under our fingernails
A taste of resurrection

Yes, I believe in Jesus

Objections to Christianity

Introduction

Growing up in a supposedly ‘Christian’ country, England, it is far too easy, oddly perhaps, to become inured against religion in general and Christianity in particular, and yet, at the same time retain immense respect for Jesus – if he existed.

Swimming against the tide? Fewer than 2% of the UK population attend church, down from approximately 20% in 1960.

For the average teenager, it is quite possible that in an average class of 30 students at school, no one attends church or in their year of 200 students only 1 attends church.

The curious aspect in all this, as stated above, public opinion about Jesus remains very positive and 48% of the population still identify as Christians and 6% consider themselves as practicing Christians.

For the average teenager, in England, it is quite possible that…only 1 student in their year attends church

According to the Evangelical Alliance survey Talking-Jesus-Report.pdf (eauk.org)

•  33% consider Jesus to be a prophet, a spiritual teacher, but not God

• 20% consider Jesus to be a normal human being

• 20% consider Jesus to be the Son of God, God in human form living in the 1st century

• 18% don’t know and 4% other

Objections

1.        Reliability of source material – the New Testament

2. Miracles don’t happen – Science has disproved the supernatural

3.        Hypocrisy, irrelevance, immorality within the church

4.        Impossible to be good enough

My story

By the time I was 15, all of the above objections had lodged very strongly in my mind. I retained a high regard for Jesus but was not convinced he had existed, doubted the New Testament was reliable, or, if historically genuine, Jesus’ fanatical followers must have woven a fanciful story surrounding a good person who they had grown to love, but, miracles could not have occurred, let alone the resurrection, therefore the New Testament was too flawed to base one’s life upon its teaching. I was an informed agnostic.

Two years later I changed my mind.

These 4 articles will show how my objections, as listed above, were dismantled and how I shifted from agnosticism to faith in Christ, believing fully in Jesus’s existence and miracles.

I hope you enjoy this short series – even if you wish to pick over the bones!

Next

Article 1: Reliability of Source Material – in the next few days

October 7th 2023 Remembrance

Not once have I
Been caught in the careful
Eye-beam of a ravenous wolf

Foxes, cunning as ever,
Stand and stare before
The shadows take them

And dogs, tongues lolling,
Trot undangerously
Learning only to love

But it was the pack
That hunted their prey
Eye-to-eye, heart-to-heart

In a murderous pact
Slaying the unguarded
In civilian slaughter

Biden’s shock: photos of
A baby riddled with bullets,
A soldier beheaded

Supernovans burned alive
In cars and hideaways
Trapped in a hatred

A sink hole
In the world’s morality
Legitimacy to govern

Torn to shreds
We weep until
The wolves’ eyes dim

Today we remember
The unforgotten, the 97
Yet to return home

But we will remember
In wrath to remember mercy
We who have been wolves

We, called to be Samaritans,
Let healing come
From unlikely places

Let war be undone like
Untied laces dragging
Along the ground

Singing songs
Of miracle
And wonder

He makes wars cease
He shatters the spear, be still
And know that I am God

The debate between Richard Dawkins and former New Atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali

It’s quite long, philosophical, hard-hitting debate, so you’ll need some stamina and a cup of coffee & supplies. But it’s held without rancour and avoids descending into an abyss of trading cheap insults, rather it’s an exchange of diametrically opposed views with mutual respect.

Cold, Day 5, 6 a.m.

Friday:
Monoclonal
Antibodies launch
An autumn offensive at
The expense of my limp arms
Heavy as I drag myself up the stairs,
Shuffling, sniffling, spluttering, coughing
In search of yet more tissues and an empty bin
Before shutting down under a blanket in the lounge
Now 7.45 a.m. I sleep for an hour, deep dive into nothing
Somehow it works. My eyes feel more like optical instruments
Not banging balls of pain, engaging in the world of fallen leaves
I put a coat on and venture out, aware that matted hair is not
A wholesome sight. Grunt-conversation at the shop is the
Most I can envisage, politely. The autumn offensive is
Underway but victory is a weekend wish. Milk and
Paracetamol packets in hand I scowl inwardly
At the RNA enemy and nod encouragingly
At my lymphocyte army as they engulf
Titchy coronaviruses before they
Hitch yet more rides on my
Ever-unzipping DNA
10.30. Poem
Tea.

Book Review: The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God, Justin Brierley, Tyndale Press

Before I delve into TSRBG and review its excellent content, please indulge me as I comment on the cover…and how it feels in the hand! 

Everything about this book: the feel in the hand; the cover’s font size; colour of the typeface; the wash of surf on an incoming wave covering the deep blue-green of the sea…all of it is somehow just right. You’ll enjoy having this in your bag, rucksack, or suitcase, or just carrying it around, putting it down, and picking it up again.

Not since Michael Green’s Runaway World (w. 1968) has a popular apologetics book for Christianity sold as many copies or received so many well-deserved plaudits.

It is, of course, a book of its age. Justin Brierley is well known for his podcast Unbelievable? - a thing unknown in the pre-online days of 1968 – in which he has pitted atheists and Christians against each other discussing issues of the day e.g. September’s offerings so far: Should we edit the human genome? and Is AI replacing humanity?

Justin’s contention is that the popularity of atheism is waning and that the the arguments of the New Atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchins, are losing popular support. He cites example after example of intelligent atheists, philosophes, scientists, and artists, who have, in recent years, turned their back on atheism and are either re-evaluating their former disparaging views about spirituality and belief in God, or experiencing full conversions to Christianity. A good example is Jordan Petersen. You can find further examples in the book but also directly from the podcasts: Why I believe | Unbelievable (premierunbelievable.com)

Brierley’s seven chapters are full of quotes from individuals who are reconsidering their atheism, as they tackle such themes as the basis and case for morals, consciousness, deficiencies with materialism and determinism, the limitations of the rational mind to encompass all truth, the reliability of the New Testament, and evidence for the historical existence of Jesus.

 Some quotes:

 ‘Science progresses one funeral at a time’

 ‘We men of knowledge of today, we godless men and anti-metaphysicians, we, too, still derive our flame from the fire ignited by a faith millennia old, the Christian faith’ Friedrich Nietzsche

 ‘To my disquiet, I began to realise that the evidence for atheism was much weaker than I thought’ Oxford emeritus professor of Science and Religion, Alister McGrath

 ‘I think his (Daniel Dennett) position is wholly inconsistent: he says that consciousness is an illusion, but I would point out that for it to be an illusion, there must be a consciousness to be ‘illuded.’ ’  Iain McGilchrist, Oxford Don researcher of psychiatry and brain science.

I found the whole book very readable. It is an intelligent work that somehow avoids being ‘intellectual’ or plagued with unnecessarily inaccessible technical language.

Michael Green’s Runaway World dealt with atheistic determinism and materialism very convincingly – it served, in fact, as the final nail in my agnostic coffin a few weeks before I capitulated to Christ. I’m sure The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God will serve a similar purpose in 2024 for those willing to re-examine their agnosticism or atheism, and, if you are a Christian believer already, it will put you back in the ring for a few combative rounds with the arguments from atheists even if they are turning towards Christ.

TSRBG also appeals to me as I grew up in Whitstable, Kent, just a few minutes away from the beach, so Matthew Arnold’s, Dover Beach, which Brierley questions and challenges, hits home.  

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round Earth’s shore

Lay the folds of a bright girdle furled

But now I only hear

Its melancholic, long, withdrawing roar

Brierley quotes goes on to quote Douglas Murray (The Madness of Crowds): ‘The interesting thing about the Sea of Faith is there’s no reason why it can’t come back in. The sea doesn’t only withdraw. You know, it’s the point of tides’

On a personal, and highly subjective note, I will bring this review to an end remembering walking along the shoreline at Lyme Regis a few summers ago and looking out to sea at low tide. A voice seemed to say to me: the tide is on the turn.

Holy Fire

This year, Anna Chegwith
Took hold of organising
Lower Banford’s Guy Fawkes Night
Beyond the boundary
Opposite the oak tree
Far from the pavilion

Anna, Catholic on a Sunday,
Firefighter by Monday,
Had two loves: order and disorder
White-shirt-buttons-neat-Chegwith
And anarchic-Anna, depatterned,
Chaotic, randomly romantic, Anna

Committee-meeting-Chegwith reigned
Precise distances to the rope
Fire station - informed
Weather reports - updated
Decision timelines – strict
Traffic lights on amber

At home, Anna put the word out:
Invite the blind, the deaf, the crippled
The autistic, anosmians, dysgeusians
And ‘Primary children to bring wood’
Written on a to do list, sat on the loo
Flushed before Chegwith could find it

The parents set to compete as ever

Anna subverting Ghegwith
Chegwith suppressing Anna

November the 5th arrives
Dusk is gathering, damp air cooling
A rope is in place, a matrix of fireworks
50 yards downwind from the pyre
Its wigwam of standard tree trunks
Chegwith’s firm foundation

Pressed into the ground by odd offerings
Old tables, bookcases, broken rocking horses
Uprooted trees, an old brown piano
Rising to meet the stars, trembling and creaking.
The crowd now hushed,
Waiting for Anna to kneel, and

Lit taper in hand to ignite the bonfire
A wild conflagration feeds the night sky
Tasted in the air, its roar heard,
The heat so real it could be held
Red raging flames compensating
The disabled, first behind the rope

Guy Fawkes Night, an enhancer, for all ages
Battling with burgers and dripping ketchup.
Yes, it had a guy, a nod to Parliament
And on Sunday Anna Chegwith,
Smelling sweet from the smoke, still,
Knelt again, as we all do before holy fire

PoW

Like flowing water
Broadcast on our soil of fear
Seeds of courage sown

Written a few days after the Princess of Wales’ broadcast a video update of her post-chemotherapy recovery

Apalachee

When the grey bullets fly
And life ruptured, stilled, and
Stripped from the living
Joins the unbreathing
Caught in unblinking grief
We all die.

Centuries of constitutional
Misadventure, deep-rooted
A torpor state of mind
A dream that spells
Freedom in another’s blood
Red raw, delusional.

Remove the rifle
Silent words in pleading eyes
What anguish sent a message
Brain to finger to pull?
And in our heart-recoil?
Agony. Mourning. A soft reprisal

Too weak to be heard
But exhaustion will have her way
Jericho walls, stiff with pride
Will loosen, will collapse
Second amendment amended
No longer deferred

Book Review: The Wisdom of Tenderness, Brennan Manning (2002)

The Wisdom of Tenderness caught my eye as it sat on the bottom step of a friend’s staircase four days ago.

Before I had finished the first page, I knew that it had successfully jumped the queue of books lying around the house crying out to be read next.

The opening salvo isn’t bad either: ‘In the past year, I’ve grown increasingly uneasy with the state of contemporary spirituality in the Western world. It has, to put the matter bluntly, the flat flavor of old ice cream.’

Manning is in a combative mood. But what follows is not a finger-pointing tirade, a Victor Meldrew ecclesiastical rant, but, like the wounded healer that Manning became, he offers his insights, and often at his own expense:

‘In praying for chronic alcoholics, I’m frequently overcome by a surge of compassion…perhaps because of my own struggle with alcoholism…the damnable imprisonment of not being able to quit…the harrowing fear that I’ve lost God…are quickly revived when I pray for an alcoholic’

Page after page Manning dismantles our – and his - self-aggrandisements, desperate coping mechanisms, dissatisfying quests for indispensability, our fears of being found out, and tells us, using his extraordinary gift of translating the human condition into beautifully written prose, that God is tender towards our poverty-stricken spirituality. Towards us.

‘The crux of this little book can be stated briefly and succinctly. In a moment of naked honesty, ask yourself. “Do I wholeheartedly trust that God likes me?” Not loves me because theologically God can’t do otherwise.’

There is an ‘American’ dimension to this book – for example, he deals with issues of hypocrisy within the pro-life/anti-abortion movement which is more of an issue across the pond than here – but the principles easily swim across to our shores.

But, if you’re British and tempted to dismiss anything from America as shallow, brash, and over-confident, this book will be a shock to your misplaced British superiority! In fact, unless you’re willing to be knocked off your perch, not to take yourself too seriously, and hand yourself in for a spiritual MOT, this book is not for you…yet.

‘The crux of this little book can be stated briefly and succinctly. In a moment of naked honesty, ask yourself. “Do I wholeheartedly trust that God likes me?” Not loves me because theologically God can’t do otherwise.’

It is my contention, however, that The Wisdom of Tenderness is for everyone: British, American, Mongolian, Chilean, Russian, French, and all comers. It is shot through with love, tenderness, mercy, and kindness in the face of human failure and spiritual poverty.

It’s not a self-help book, but it is one for those who like John Lennon who wrote ‘Help!’ in response to his out-of-control lifestyle and fame: "I was eating and drinking like a pig, and I was…dissatisfied with myself...I was crying out for help.” I can’t comment on what John Lennon did to self-medicate, but Manning unreservedly points us to Jesus as the ultimate source of the help we all need.

The Wisdom of Tenderness is not a biography, but I add Manning’s Wikipedia page if you wish to know more about the author. He died in 2013.

Brennan Manning - Wikipedia

Book Review: The West in Her Eyes, Janet Hancock, Resolute Books

‘The first movement of the Schumann Fantasie ebbs from her. When she lifts her head, Monsieur Tournon is looking at some point beyond her. ‘Good,’ he nods. ‘Technically I can find no fault…Try the opening theme again. Here is a man who believes he has lost the only woman he can love.’

This is an excellent read and a page-turner. The quote above is a taster.

Perhaps ‘excellent read’ is all I need to write for a book review? Nevertheless a few words will follow:

The West in Her Eyes transports the reader into the turmoil that enveloped Russia during the aftermath of the First World War, the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas, the murder of the Royal Family, and the October Revolution of 1917. Add to that the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire and the reconstitution of present-day Turkey and the scene is set.

All very interesting of course, but I was intrigued to discover how well this historical fiction gathered together partially-known strands and fragments of history and geography into a coherent whole that n years of secondary school failed to do with its dates of battles and maps to colour in!

But there’s more to this book than international intrigue

But there’s more to this book than international intrigue. The tension between tragedy and hope twists and turns throughout the novel via two principal characters, Esther and Anahid. Esther is a young Russian girl, a Jewess, who dreams of playing concert piano maybe in Paris. She is fleeing from the Bolsheviks with her family and meets Anahid, one of the many wives of Mirza Khan, in Tehran.

The desperate political background and the intricately woven plot are sufficient in themselves to make it worthwhile reading The West in Her Eyes, but what lifted this book off the shelf for me was the author’s ability not only to take the reader into the romantic adventures of both women, but also to describe the sights, smells, and sounds of the countries, towns, and cities surrounding the Black Sea such as Constantinople, as they seek to escape, refugees on the run, from a war-torn world; for example, when Esther and Anahid are escaping via a camel train from Kasvin in Persia to Erzerum in Anatolia:

‘On every horizon, purple mountains undulate…the day is as still as eternity, tinkle of sheep-bells floating…the road slopes into a valley of afternoon shadows and the scent of blue, wavering dung smoke. They cross a wooden bridge with no handrails, over a foaming river…ancient trees…roots curled in and out of cracked earth like arthritic fingers’

The heart of the story concerns the fortunes of Esther and Anahid, two women with the West in their eyes, their attempted escape from troubled times with Esther’s parents, and siblings and lovers included. How their hopes and dreams, fears and longings, are sometimes realised, and sometimes dashed, will, I think, move you to the final chapter.

Leaning on a hoe

The sun, bleary-eyed as I
Barely peering above the horizontal,
Pours down its slow post-dawn light
On a muggy morning, August,
Dew rising, humid and still
The muffled commute underway

Eight men arrayed
In orange jackets and legs
Swap cigarettes and light up
The prelude to an attack
In slow motion on a
Weed-infested dockside kerb

I join the runners old and not so
Immunised against joint pain
With earbuds full of
Marley or Madness
Or, in my case,
Berry, the Black Country poet

The sun rises; the sweat falls
In great drops, my shirt
Monsoon damp, a testimony
To efforts that will not trouble
Or terrify
Any records known to man

The end, and I walk the perimeter
Of Cumberland Basin to cool
At the far end, under the Sun
The same eight in orange
Stand prodding at the enemy
With dedicated timidity

One, leaning on his hoe,
A hoe that mimics
The angle of lazy urination,
Fails to move, fearing defeat,
‘The weeds will win’ it’s
Beneath him to bend

The others shuffle, smoke, and scrape
Towards their first tea break
As I head home
To put the kettle on
And break sweat once again:
Pen in hand

In Christ: Article 3: New Testament Greek: ἐν Χριστῷ translated as ‘In Christ’ Milk or meat?

‘I could not write to you as spiritually mature but as fleshly, as babes in Christ…I fed you with milk not solid food…you are still fleshly…and are behaving like mere men.’ 1 Cor 3v1-4

‘Though by this time you should be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary lessons…you need milk, not solid food…solid food belongs to the mature…let us go on to maturity’ Heb 5v12-14; 6 v1

It is late August. Apples are almost ripe. Blackberries are softening, a little sour and hard, plums are turning deep purple, and the ripe ones taste sweet.

Babies are born with perfectly formed organs. The heart beats and the kidneys are hard at work. The parents, of course, hope that, in time, the baby will learn to walk, talk, eat from a spoon, run, and become literate, numerate, and physically coordinated. Into teens, and particular abilities, personality traits, likes, and dislikes become strong features, all developing into adulthood. By the late teens and early twenties, the teenager has become an adult, able to live independently of parents.

The process is invisible. It is a mystery. All we know is, that given the right food and growing conditions, all living organisms mature. We also know that abuse, trauma, various medical conditions, and poverty can severely disrupt, halt, or prevent the process from reaching the end goal.

In the New Testament, there is a similar expectation for believers to reach spiritual maturity in Christ; and warnings that the process is not automatic and spiritual growth can be halted.

The process towards spiritual maturity may be a mystery but, just as the observable symptoms of physical, mental, and emotional immaturity are sometimes plain to see, the New Testament writers – Peter, John, and Paul – all write to churches where they have detected developmental problems.

Birth

In Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, he says:

‘Unless one is born again…of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven’ John 3v1f

Jesus was repackaging the message of the New Covenant as prophesied by Jeremiah and Ezekiel that God would remove our stony hearts and replace them with new fleshy hearts, a new spirit, and His Holy Spirit.

Babies are born with perfectly formed organs. The heart beats and the kidneys are hard at work

When someone is ‘born again’ they are a babe in Christ. Everything is fully formed. The new heart and spirit are fully functioning. On day one as a believer the communion between the Holy Spirit and the person’s new spirit has begun. Radical changes can take place from day one. But moving on to maturity is another matter!

New Testament illustrations

• Discipleship – a disciple is like an apprentice, learning various skills, ways of thinking; it’s an information and formation process. The disciple becomes like the master.

• Little children, young men, fathers.

‘I have written to you, little children because your sins are forgiven…I have written to you young men because you are strong and the word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil one, I write to you fathers because you have known Him who is from the beginning’ 1 John 2v12-14

• Mere men, fleshly, spiritually mature

‘I could not write to you as spiritually mature but as fleshly, as babies in Christ…you are still fleshly…and are behaving like mere men.’ 1 Cor 3v1-4

• Foundations – ‘let us move on to maturity not laying again the foundation’ Heb 6v2

Point 1: Mere men, fleshly, spiritually mature

The apostolic letters from Peter, John, and Paul all address ongoing problems occurring in the churches. In Romans, Paul addresses the division between Gentile and Jewish believers. In both letters to the Corinthians, he highlights the factions and particular sexual sins as evidence of immaturity. In Galatians, he warns of the dire consequences of retreating from faith to legalism.

John is tackling a sensitive church issue where there has been a breakdown in the relationship between John and Diotrophes, a leader who ‘loves to have the pre-eminence’ 2 John 9 and has barred the apostle John, the close friend of Jesus, from the church!

Peter’s two epistles end with a charge to ‘grow in the grace of our Lord’

It is Paul’s response to the church in Corinth suffering with factions following certain personalities and preachers that sheds some light on spiritual maturity. The church situation is not unlike our own day with the body of Christ divided denominationally.

Mere men/Natural man – Paul is writing to believers reminding them that they are not mere men. You were, he says, but now you are ‘born again not just of water (natural birth) but of the Spirit (spiritual birth)’

Fleshly believers, babies in Christ – flesh here doesn’t refer to ‘skin’ but to human abilities intricately woven into our souls: our ability to reason, to be sensitive emotionally, and to make decisions; summarised as mind, emotions, and will. These are believers, but who have either never learnt, or forgotten, or are wilfully ignoring the Spirit, relying on their own abilities to live, love, and find liberty. Their decisions over money, sex, and associations are based on preference rather than the voice of the Spirit of Christ. Such believers are mimicking their pre-Christian state and are acting like ‘mere men’.

flesh here doesn’t refer to ‘skin’ but to human abilities intricately woven into our souls

To summarise: these believers are ‘soulish’ living from their own abilities and preferences, the symptoms are division, factions, and sexual immorality, rather than ‘spiritual’ living from the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Spiritually mature – in the New Covenant the relationship between the believer and the living God is restored and underway from day one. Progress is entirely by grace – a free gift, freely given – and via the communion between the believer’s new spirit and the Holy Spirit.

Learning to ‘walk in the Spirit’ is the way ahead. Jesus likened this to a fountain: ‘If you knew the gift of God…He would have given you living water…whoever drinks of the water I give will never thirst…it will become in Him a fountain of living water…’ John 4 v 10-14

The soul may be a good servant but it’s a lousy master. Our minds, emotions, and wills, are amazing; they are not inherently evil or inferior to our spirit, nor are our bodies – but we become spiritually mature when led by the Spirit in every aspect of life, not just Christian meetings!

The church in Corinth had begun to switch from the Spirit to ‘wisdom’:

‘We speak wisdom to the mature, yet not the wisdom of this age…not in words which man teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual with spiritual but the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned’ 1 Cor 2 whole chapter

Point 2: Not laying again the foundations

There is some humour in these illustrations!

It’s easy to forget with the seriousness of the subject matter, but the sight of a teenager or adult still suckling milk only from his or her mother’s breast is as shocking – and funny – as watching a homeowner, periodically, dismantling a perfectly good house, digging up the foundations and starting all over again. Madness! It’s the stuff of comedy.

And yet, whoever wrote the epistle to the Hebrews was saying just that! He was watching a church reexamining the foundations and never building on the foundations. The point is twofold: firstly the foundations are perfectly adequate, they don’t need digging up and relaying - but if you insist on relaying them, remember what they are.

The foundations are perfectly good – they pass the builder’s regs and the surveyor’s report. And they are ‘living foundations’ in operation 24/7 in the life of the believer. They are neither consigned to the past (e.g. conversion to Christ) nor to the future (e.g. the day of resurrection or judgement) but are eternal and, therefore, to be in operation continually.

1. Repentance from dead works and faith towards God

This is not the repentance and faith required to become a believer, it is a living word, a description of what it is like to be spiritually discerning. In this case the ability – from the Holy Spirit – to discern between dead works and living works. Dead works are not necessarily ‘sinful’ (e.g. adultery, murder, theft) but anything that your new spirit does not ‘witness’ with the Holy Spirit.

2. Doctrines of baptisms

Those in Christ should have been plunged into the Messiah (baptised into Christ), baptised in the Holy Spirit, and baptised into the body of Christ. Our water baptism symbolising these baptisms but spiritually these three baptisms are one drama being seen in three dimensions and serve as living foundations upon which to build.

The believer should be operating 24/7 out from Christ Himself, the power of the Spirit, and their living place as a living stone in the body of Christ.

3. Resurrection of the dead

Paul says of God: ‘God, who gives life to the dead’ Rom 4v17. This is a general statement but its application in this instance is the birth of Isaac, the ‘son of promise’ from Abraham and Sarah in their old age: ‘Abraham did not consider his own body, already dead as he was about 100 years old and the deadness of Sarah’s womb…being fully convinced that God was able to perform what He had promised’ v19-21.

When Jesus spoke of the resurrection he said: ‘Truly I say to you the hour is coming and now is when the, dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live…do not be shocked, the hour is coming when all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth – those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation’ John 5v25-29

‘Abraham did not consider his own body, already dead as he was about 100 years old and the deadness of Sarah’s womb…being fully convinced that God was able to perform what He had promised’

The New Testament is a radical message. It says that before we are placed ‘in Christ’ we are dead, in a grave, and unable to lift ourselves up, into life. But that, in this state, when we hear the gospel – the voice of the Son of God – if we have the same faith in the word of God as Abraham, we are raised to life. Now. It is the story of every person who finds faith in Christ.

There is also the promise of resurrection at the end, on the last day. And that Jesus’s bodily resurrection was a ‘first fruit’. That day is coming, but these foundation stones are living stones, they refer to the 24/7 experience of being led by the Spirit. In different circumstances we are faced with the voice of the Spirit saying ‘x’ whilst our mind looks at the ‘facts’ and concludes ‘x is impossible,’ Abraham looked at his impotent body and his post-menopausal wife’s body but believed the word of God even though it contradicted the facts.

4. Eternal judgement

Again it is important not to consign this foundation stone to the past ‘He who believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgement but has passed from death into life’ John 5 v 24,25 or entirely to the future day of judgement ‘the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ’ Rom 2 v 16.

This is a living word that each believer builds on – his or her ability to ‘compare spiritual with spiritual’ and to grow in the ability to live a life full of spiritual discernment in every circumstance.

Conclusions – and solid food?

None of us who are ‘in Christ’ can avoid the call to maturity. How the Holy Spirit brings about our maturity in Christ is an even deeper mystery than scientists trying to unpick the various stages of physical maturity. Spiritual maturity is an invisible process – invisible to others but known to God who looks on the heart.

There is a time element; the natural world shows us this with plants and animals reaching physical maturity along fairly predictable timelines, but mental and emotional maturity doesn’t always coincide with reaching physical maturity. Many enter adult life with a mature physical body but a sense of mental or emotional incompleteness or limitations.

Spiritually, those in Christ who have received the Holy Spirit are born into a new trajectory towards spiritual maturity. The spirit-Spirit communion with the promised ‘fountain of living water’ affects our souls and bodies and, therefore, every part of life: family, friends, work, interests, money, sex, and associations – our neighbours.

What is the ‘solid food’ that Paul and the writer of the letter to Hebrews call us to eat?

A cursory look at the letters to the churches whether written by Paul, Peter, or John can be divided into two halves.

The first half is devoted to doctrine – substitutionary and inclusive atonement for example -whereas, in the second half, the authors are usually saying, ‘OK now you know what God has done for you through the death and resurrection of Christ, now that you know that you are forgiven and a child of God, in Christ and Christ is in you, now you know that you were crucified with Christ and have been raised as a new creation in Him, now that you have received the gift of the Spirit…now that you know the A,B,C of the gospel, out you go into the world.’

What is the ‘solid food’ that Paul and the writer of the letter to Hebrews call us to eat?

The second half says: back to your families, your friends, your workplaces, your churches, and into your callings, gifts and ministries from the Spirit…overcome here, get some victories in the world under your belt as John’s ‘young men’ who overcome the evil one being strong in the word.

Then you are on the path towards being a ‘father’ who knows God who is from the beginning, living in the world with an eternal perspective, abiding in the ‘I am’, like Jesus.

The final ‘I am’ statement in John’s gospel Jesus states ‘I am the vine; you are the branches’. We’re back to the mystery of watching apples ripen on the tree, or here in John 15, to grapes maturing on the vine. As long as we as branches are in Christ, our destiny of maturity is inevitable…as long as we let the Father the gardener approach us with His two knives.

‘My father is the gardener, He cuts off every branch in Me that does not bear fruit and prunes every branch that does bear fruit so that it can bear more fruit’ John 15v1,2

The cutting out of dead branches is ‘repentance of dead works and faith towards God’ in operation: something that may have born fruit in the past is now ‘dead’ and needs to be excised; the knife is out. Similarly, if we are bearing fruit, the wisdom of the Father is to prune, to cut back fruit-bearing branches for the sake of producing better quality fruit.

Babies and infants in Christ are prone to getting very upset at this discipline of the Father just as natural small children get upset because they cannot see the bigger picture. Equally young men will fight and resist the Father as the gardener, wielding the knife. ‘Can’t you see the fruit, Father?’ or ‘With your life within me, I know this can live and bear fruit!’. But a father in Christ understands the whole picture, understands the Father’s wisdom, and has faith that, no matter how the Father wields His knife, it will be to produce more fruit.